When a man, in calm moments of deliberate reflection, has settled and adopted the principles of ethics and morality which ought to govern his life, and when, under the pressure of urgent exigency, or in moments of eager excitement, his view of their truth or value undergoes a sudden change, it is not safe to give way to such influence. He would evince wisdom in calling to mind, that, in hours of tranquil judgment, with no passion to blind and no impulse of the moment to urge beyond reason, he _had_ adopted certain principles of action, for guidance and safety. Doubtless age may correct, and ought to correct, the errors of youth. But when we change a life-rule, it should be from a matured conviction, that, on general principles, the correction is just and proper; not because it would afford relief or satisfaction for the time being, or prove convenient for some special purpose. So of the Constitution of the United States. Of fallible because human origin, it is imperfect. A rule of political action in a progressive world, it was by its founders properly made subject to amendment. At the first session of the first Congress ten amendments were adopted; two have been added since; and experience has approved this action. That other amendments may hereafter be necessary and proper it would be presumptuous to deny. But we ought to touch the ark of our political testimony with careful and reverent hand. All legislative bodies are liable to sudden and wayward impulses. To these the Congress of our young country is more exposed than the Parliaments or Chambers of older nations. It would have been very unsafe to trust a Congressional majority with the power of amending the Constitution. Difficulties and delays were properly put in the way of exercising such a prerogative. To two-thirds of both houses, or to a convention called by the legislatures of two-thirds of the several States, was granted the power of proposing amendments; while the power to ratify these was not confided to less than to the legislatures, or to the conventions, of three-fourths of the States composing the Union. To alter the Constitution in any other way--as by the consent of a majority only of the several States--would be a revolutionary act. Doubtless revolutionary acts become a justifiable remedy on rare and great occasions, as in 1776; but they are usually replete with danger. They are never more dangerous than when employed by one section of a confederacy against another, weaker section of the same. To the stability of government, it is necessary that the rights of minorities should be strictly respected. The end does not necessarily justify the means. "No example," says an eminent and philosophical writer, "is more dangerous than that of violence employed for a good purpose by well-meaning men."[6]